Business Writing: When Not To Be Professional

Written by Lisa Packer

It’s time to write your next ad or brochure. Maybe some web content. You’ve done all your research, and you’re staring at a blank computer screen. You want to look good in print. You want to put your “best foot forward.” And, of course, you want to make a barrel full of money.

Well, you’re going to have to pick one, because you can’t do all three.

Not, that is, if “looking good in print” means sounding like an educated professional. Or using perfect grammar. Because unless all of your prospects are English teachers, they’re going to respond better to more natural writing – writing that reads like people actually speak.

Real people don’t speak like “professionals” write. (Neither, for that matter, do most professionals.) Real people use sentence fragments. They start sentences with “and”, “or” and “but.”

Every now and then they kind of trail off like…

One thing real people do not do is use big, fancy words when shorter ones will do. And neither should you.

Real people do not say things like, “I am committed to finding lowest cost alternative.” Why, then, would you want to be “focused on providing” it?

Copywriting that uses stuffy, complex language just doesn’t sell. You know what I mean: The verbose, impersonal, corporate-speak that sounds more like a mission statement (which nobody cares about) than a personal communication. The kind that strokes CEO’s ego when it should be stroking prospect’s.